July 10, 2002

It's several days after More Than Music and now I'm getting around to listening to all the new CDs and records I picked up in Columbus. The most fruitful score came from the CD/Game Exchange, where I got a 3-CD "history of ska" compilation called Don't Call Me Ska Face for $14, and another comp, Skinhead Jamboree, for a dollar. Skinhead Jamboree revisits England's proto-skinhead culture of the 1970s and its symbiosis with Jamaican reggae. The more famous names on here are Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, and Toots and the Maytals, but each of the 26 tracks is worthwhile, many of 'em are terrific, and several of 'em are politically charged responses to the violence and racism developing within the youth movement at the time.